When Julia Gillard knocked off Kevin Rudd two years ago yesterday, Labor was floundering principally because of three intractable policy issues - the mining tax, carbon pricing and asylum seekers.

Gillard, as Prime Minister, made it a priority to resolve all three.

The government's final hope at redemption is that Abbott's shrill predictions of Armageddon will be exposed as rubbish from next week onwards.

She cut a quick deal with the minerals giants and watered down the mining tax, put carbon-pricing policy on ''reset'', and announced the government would seek a regional solution to people-smuggling, starting with a processing centre in East Timor. Then, before things could unravel further, she called an election.

Two years later, the three issues identified by Gillard remain as troublesome as ever.

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Least so is the mining tax, which was successfully negotiated through Parliament and comes into effect next Monday. The public has come around to the concept and it has majority support, despite the opposition's best efforts.

But it remains a potential time bomb.

Andrew Forrest has challenged the tax in the High Court. Most observers believe Forrest is wasting his money but that has been said before and this government has a poor record with the High Court.

More dangerous is the claim by the opposition and some within the industry that the tax will make nowhere near the revenue claimed because the miners hoodwinked the government. If true, the government will have rather a large hole in its budget.

The report to be released today by the Minerals Council of Australia, just a week before the tax begins, kindly points out the volatility of the revenue forecasts.

The opposition doesn't know how to attack the tax any more. It claims the tax will kill the industry (the same industry which, by the way, plans to invest $4.5 billion over the next four years), while at the same time claiming the miners won't have to pay much of it.

The carbon tax also begins next week. It needs little introduction. As the Herald's Peter Hartcher observed at the weekend, it is a formidable piece of public policy but the politics surrounding it are toxic due to Gillard's broken promise.

So much so that it is the issue which has defined this term of government and will be at the core of the next federal election. The government's final hope at redemption is that Abbott's shrill predictions of Armageddon will be exposed as rubbish from next week onwards, providing the game-changer Wayne Swan has forecast twice in recent weeks.

John Howard said the same about the GST but it took longer than he hoped to turn things around and he started from a much stronger position.

Abbott has promised that, if elected, he will abolish these two taxes. This will be complicated and financially messy but ultimately possible because, as Abbott says, what Parliament can do, Parliament can undo.

His other big boast, that he will stop the boats - the third unresolved issue still bedevilling this government - threatens to be the hardest of all to tackle.

Abbott wants people to believe that what worked last time will work again. Detention and processing on Nauru, temporary protection visas, and turning boats around when safe to do so.

Thursday's tragedy hangs a lantern once more on the issue.

There is little dispute that Rudd's abolition of Howard government policies has led to the situation now whereby the boats arrive regularly, filling detention centres to the point community detention is now required.

This system of onshore processing is the very situation for which the Greens and refugee groups have argued and the numbers arriving are even higher than the experts warned.

When the inevitable tragedy strikes, the Greens and others have nothing to offer, other than some utopian vision of a regional solution, something Gillard tried to start - and was burnt.

Last year, the High Court ruled Labor's Malaysia plan illegal and the government needs the opposition's help to legislate around that decision.

Abbott received the same briefing from the then secretary of the Immigration Department Andrew Metcalfe, as did the media. Metcalfe told Abbott his policies - of which Metcalfe was a principal architect - would not work again. Nauru would be no more a deterrent than Christmas Island because people now knew that once processed they would most likely be sent to Australia.

Temporary protection visas were not considered a deterrent and as for turning the boats back, the Indonesians would not permit it. Last time it was tried, it proved the most effective measure of all until the people smugglers started scuttling the boats when intercepted, endangering everybody.

As for the proposed policy of refusing refugee status to those who destroy their identification, to just where would you return them?

Abbott has been told not just by Metcalfe, but the Liberals' godfather of border protection, Philip Ruddock, that he should provide the numbers to allow Labor to adopt the Malaysia solution. Metcalfe called it ''virtual tow back''. Return 800 people to Malaysia and it would be like towing the boats back.

Labor has offered to use Nauru as well but Abbott refuses point blank to bend.

Some claim it will split the Coalition, yet Gillard had the guts to push it past the Labor Left. For Abbott, it is his way or nothing, but he should reconsider.

If he consents and the policy fails, it will be the government's failure.

226 comments

I have commented on the issue of asylum seeker problem umpteen times In the Sydney Morning herald with its different scribes’ opinion streams. Repeating them would be akin to paying a broken record and wouldn’t be mellifluous to the readers. Even then, some points need to be stressed.

It is simple that Abbott should pass the migration amendment bill to stop the stem of rickety boats coming to our shores. As Julia Gillard has said, the bill is not country specific that Abbott can choose the country of his choice for processing the asylum seekers, if he ever comes to power. It is not Abbott’s political interest to pass the bill and he wants the boats keep coming because Julia Gillard’s Malaysian solution will put an end to the Human traffickers and their willing human cargos with moolah aplenty to fork out to the traffickers to bring them here.

Then the question is: am I my brothers’ keeper? Of course, I am and only to the genuine refugees, who have no moolah at their disposal to pay to the human traffickers to bring them here, from Burma that Julia Gillard is planning to bring from Malaysian refugee camps.

The important thing is to stop these people venturing into their rickety boat journey to Australia and Abbott’s so called success under Howard issued protection visa were furphy.

Howard’s Pacific Solution was the biggest duping! Remember, Howard beating on his chest like a macho man and declared that no one in the Tampa ship would ever end up in Australia. Where are they now? In Australia, of course, like Howard once said he was relaxed and comfortable in Australia.

Had Abbott passed the migration amendment bill, all these human tragedies could have been avoided.

Commenter

Kattooparambil

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

June 25, 2012, 7:40AM

@Kattooparambil, such verbosity is a sure sign of BS. Labor and The Greens are the ones with the difficult questions to answer.

Commenter

Gegsy

Location

Auchenflower

Date and time

June 25, 2012, 8:57AM

@ Kattooparambil........I am acutely aware of your Labor leanings and your comments are as always Labor biased. There is one huge flaw in your reasoning, even if the Opposition pass the Malaysia solution the Greens will kill it in the Senate, Strike One, lets assume if the Malaysian Solution gets the green light, it allows for 800 refugees to be sent to Malaysia in exchange for 4000, what happens after 800 have been sent to Malaysia, game over, Strike Two. There are 800 a week arriving at present so where does this leave Labor? another MASSIVE SCREW UP?

Commenter

Moz

Date and time

June 25, 2012, 9:07AM

Dear GimmeabreakYes you are right! As opposition leader Abbott is responsible for running the country. Our Dear Leader conversely is responsible for running the Opposition. What a frightful mess The Trasher has got us in again. When will it ever again make sense? I am just so confused.

Commenter

Scruffy

Location

Lost

Date and time

June 25, 2012, 2:38PM

It will only happen under a true system of democracy a la Switzerland in which only the people are sovereign with true democratic rights anything else is not democratic because we are irrelevant full stop.

Commenter

half

Location

Sydney

Date and time

June 25, 2012, 2:56PM

Hello Gegsy\Thank you, glad to hear from you again.

The truism always hurt.

Commenter

Kattooparambil

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

June 25, 2012, 9:15AM

@ Kattooparmbil...... You can bleat as much as you like about Labor Border Protection, there was No problem till Labor hanging on the Puppeteers strings of the Green Looneys changed the Border Protection Laws that worked, yes that worked, it stopped unseaworthy boats carrying human cargo. These very stupid Clowns now want to blame Abbott for their abysmal FAILURE. Labor broke it now Labor can fix it.

Commenter

Observer

Date and time

June 25, 2012, 9:19AM

Once again the discussion avoids the "elephant in the room" .. namely that Gillard is the PM, and Labor is in Government.

The Opposition is under no obligation to pass ANY government legislation - certainly Labor supported very little when they were in opposition.

Gillard has a majority in the House of Representatives, hence why she is the PM. If she is unable to get a piece of legislation through that house, then that is HER problem, not the oppositions.

The constant wailing "but Abbott won't pass it" does nothing more than emphasise a weakness of the Government, and improves the standing of the Opposition - and Labor then wonders why it's polling figures are so abysmal!

Commenter

rob1966

Date and time

June 25, 2012, 9:24AM

Rudd was rolled because the one policy that he wasn't going to squib on was imposing a far more stringent mining tax, and all those mining spruikers in the Labour party could take everything except that.

The only policy this current prime minister didn't squib on was giving herself a $90,000 payrise in the middle of a recession, just for that little exercise in noblesse oblige she should go.

Commenter

milesanddizzy

Location

Sydney

Date and time

June 25, 2012, 12:52PM

Had Labor not foolishly dismantled Howard's border security arrangements Labor wouldn't be in this mess.

The challenge for this government and its cock-eyed supporters is that in order to dig themselves out of this hole they need to be able gain the co-operation of the opposition and blame the opposition all at the same time.